The Well-Rounded Life of Chris Coy
Written by: Aaron Royce
Photographer: Vaughn Eric Stewart @vaughnericstewart
Actor: Chris Coy
Stylist: Sarah Paris @sarahmkparis
Grooming: Hannan Siddique @hannan_makeup_hair
Creative Director: Mike Stallings @mikestallingsny
Special thanks to Interior Designer Robert Passal @robertpassal
After seeing Forrest Gump as a child, Chris Coy’s mother remembers him saying, ‘I want to be in movies.’ “I don’t remember that, but I’d never want to cross my mother,” Coy laughs. “I’m an only child, so I spent a lot of time watching and being moved by movies. In high school, I ended up in drama class and realized I had more fun doing something creative than I’d had doing anything else. I moved to L.A. after graduating early wanting to do music, and I had an actor roommate. I’d go over scenes and lines with him when I didn’t even have the audition. I realized, ‘This is it. I think I love this.’ ”
Another lucky break, and some planning led Coy to his industry. “I began working in an apartment building. It was a nice building, so I assumed someone there would be in the industry. I photocopied a tenant list and brought it home to look everyone up online, and found this manager who lived there,” he recounts. “I just really got lucky. The first person I befriended in the building, before I asked, introduced himself as that manager. We became friends, and eventually he asked me what I was doing. I said, ‘I’m trying to be an actor.’ He said, ‘You know I’m a manager?’ That’s how it started, 13 years ago. I took lots of auditions, and faced lots of rejections and ups and downs, which are some of the best ingredients in the journey. All the bad times shaped me and made me a better actor.”
Those trials manifested into well-received projects for Coy, the most recent being HBO’s The Deuce. The three-season drama jumps six years between each. This is a feat, as Coy-who plays gay bartender Paul Hendrickson-anticipates character transformations. “There’s a lot of growth happening in that much time to a person that it’s like I’m playing 3 characters,” he says of the timing’s effects. “In season 1, it’s 1971, and I was playing more of a dreamer-someone who felt like he had a vision for the future, though the world he was living in wasn’t paralleling that. In this season we’re in 1977, there’s a lot happening in New York City, and it’s the hottest point of American gay liberation. Paul’s grown up a bit, really come into his own and is more comfortable with who he is. It’s fun for me. I like the impulsiveness to try and find that truth.”
“I feel most comfortable where my ladies are.”
To prepare for the role, Coy drew from that culture and his recognition of Paul’s human identity-and his own. “I read Larry Kramer’s book Faggots, because it takes place in 1978 in the Village-and that’s this whole season. It’s gritty, but follows that character who isn’t far from Paul’s nature and a lot of that community at the time,” he says. “It felt like I got a whole education. I’m a married straight man with two kids, and I was trusted to play this role. I’ve experimented in my early 20’s and was a slight wild child, so I had some experience to draw from to play Paul. What’s great is that his sexual orientation is a strong point in who he is, but is secondary to who he is at his core. He’s a good, honest, intelligent man who lives in the moment and believes in opportunity-and that’s what I wanted to highlight. I can get down on myself or people around me, and oftentimes my wife has to pick me back up; Paul is really good at checking himself. It teaches you things that show you something about yourself. This season David Simon created is so exciting-it’s a glimpse into truth, history and maybe the most liberated time and people this country has ever known. It was white-hot for a small amount of time, and that’s what you’ll get a glimpse of. It’s wild, sexy, and cool. There’s so much good, challenging work; it’s the best, most fun, and most humbling job I’ve ever had.”
Fans of Coy’s can track his longest TV roles to HBO. Patterns of work-in his case, Treme, True Blood, and now The Deuce-occur, and could be attributed to luck. But he recognizes luck doesn’t define experiences-it’s the work he’s put forth, as well as others,’ that do. “I’ve been really lucky to have great casting directors who are willing to see me, see I was there to do the best job I can do, and believe in me to pull that off,” Coy says of pre-role experiences. “Besides to put the pressure on yourself, do the work and hope it works out, I wanted all of those jobs. I mean, [HBO] rolled the dice with me on Treme-that was my first regular series. I was terrified, because they were heroes-The Wire is my favorite show-but they made that commitment, and I did a good enough job that I got a chance on The Deuce. I’ve worked really hard and commit to trying my best at all times, and I’ve had some really wonderful people that have decided to believe in me-and I’m endlessly fortunate to have that.”
Though he’s a dedicated actor, Coy’s most important dedication is to family. “My roots have become wherever my wife and daughters are. Given the choice, we prefer our house in California that’s peaceful and away from the city. That’s where I feel the most comfortable. I’ve sort of become my grandparents-I like things slow, quiet and a bit routine. I want to sit down and watch Jeffrey every night at 7,” he jokes, stating his preference outside of work. “I was born in Kentucky, but my mother and I moved to Florida with my grandparents. We go back there a couple times a year to get back in touch with my roots, get a reminder of the swamp from which I came, and reset. I feel most comfortable wherever my ladies are.”
Wherever family is where Coy wants to be the most. With a long lineup of credits and more to come, his star and successes are growing. But family loyalty keeps him grounded in the bubble of Hollywood. “When I come to a fork in the road and they need me or this needs me, they win. That’s just how it always has to be,” Coy says of his work-life balance. “More importantly, I’ve never made that call and not been rewarded for it; I’ve made the other call and been punished. Just take the advice of every family movie you’ve watched, and choose your wife and kids over work! It’s not always easy, because it’s difficult-especially the more success is found, the higher the stakes get, and I’ve wanted this my whole life. But I never knew how much I needed them, and they weigh far more. I always maintain a handle on the truth that they’re more important than this.”
“All the bad times shaped me and made me a better actor.”
Coy’s passion for his job is nonetheless present, especially as he prepares for the release of drama The Front Runner. The film, premiering at the Toronto Film Festival this fall, chronicles 1988 presidential candidate Gary Hart’s downfall in the wake of an affair. Coy says playing press secretary Kevin Sweeney is one of his most humbling, challenging roles yet. “Director Jason Reitman made this movie on political career destroyed by scandal, and I’m trying to strategically serve as damage control. That was humbling, and it’s such a great role to play because it’s infinitely harder to do that justice,” he says. “He [Sweeney] is a real guy who threw all he had at trying to help and save this man’s career. It was a real privilege to get to play that guy; he’s a brilliant, hardworking young man who believed in his candidate. It’s this mission I get to fasten myself to: I didn’t want him to win, but as a country we need him to win. And then a wrench gets thrown in, and the whole machine falls apart-so how do I plug all of these holes? I haven’t seen the film yet, but I’ll be promoting it and have heard tremendous things about it.”
Reflecting on the hardships and victories that have made up his career, Coy wants aspiring actors to enjoy the passions of the craft despite difficulties. “Enjoy yourself. Enjoy the process and the losses, because you’ll have way more of them than wins. Within those losses, that’s where you grow,” Coy says. “Trust and enjoy the process. Don’t drive yourself crazy focusing on whether you got a job. If you’re only thinking about ‘I need to get this job,’ you’re forgetting you’re doing this because you love to act. That can’t be taken away from you. When you go in that audition room, if you subscribe to that ideal, it is the job. You’ll get that job more than if you go there to convince them to give it to you. If you’re truly present and enjoying yourself, people love seeing that. It relieves the stress, and whether you get the job or not, you go in there and have a great time and treat it like a job-so it’s a win.”
“I’ve worked really hard and commit to trying my best at all times.”
